Pros: highly liquid, major tenors are well represented in cash bonds Cons: balance sheet intensive (ties up cash), does not support outright short positions (some part of the curve are
relatively less liquid), does not support forward positions
Not exact matches
Anecdotally, it appears market participants may be using
relatively more
liquid instruments to hedge exposures in other
less liquid market segments, perhaps unintentionally contributing to increased correlation across markets.
My point was and is that the equity risk premium is bundled up closely with the nature of the security itself (i.e., being a publicly traded,
relatively liquid investment asset called an equity, that has a very specific bundle of rights and risks attached to it), which has very different characteristics than the many other financial assets available in the economy (many of which have bundles of risk that are perceived as «riskier», and many of which are perceived as «
less risky»).
3) Buying individual bonds is a
relatively inefficient and
less liquid venture than say buying individual stocks for instance, unless you have some real size.
The International Fund may invest in emerging markets, which are generally more volatile and can have
relatively unstable governments, social and legal systems that do not protect shareholders, economies based on only a few industries and securities markets that are substantially smaller,
less liquid, more volatile and may have a lower level of government oversight than securities markets in more developed countries.
For example, it's
relatively easy to trade the large cap stocks in the S&P 500 Index, whereas it's harder to trade the
less liquid stocks in the MSCI Frontier Market Index.
It is interesting to note that the S&P BSE India Corporate Bond Index had lower risk than sovereign bonds during all periods studied; this could probably be explained by the Indian corporate bond characteristics, which are
relatively fragmented and
less liquid than the sovereign bonds.
The anomolous expansion of
liquid water with cooling at temperatures
less than 4 °C, means that the bottom of a frozen garden pond can remain
relatively warm, if it is deep enough.